A Guide to Auto-Battling: Initiative
YOU ARE ON PAGE 4 OF 5. INTRODUCTION | ENMITY DISTRIBUTION | FORMATION | INITIATIVE | CONCLUSION COMPILED BY SIN | EDITED BY CLONEDSTARS Part 3: Initiative Settings Order of Turn Another huge influence (so huge, this is probably one of the most important things you familiarize yourself with) on the success of auto-battling is setting the proper initiative for each hero to maximize the efficiency of your heroes' skill usage. Initiative (found at the bottom of the screen when you click the magnifying glass on a hero's portrait) controls the order in which a hero takes their turn and the likelihood of activating their skill. If more than one hero has the same initiative, the hero that goes first will be determined by the default auto-battle order (top-right downwards, to bottom left), as shown below: A hero with a higher initiative goes earlier in the turn and is more likely to activate their skill than a hero with low initiative. This is especially important because it can control the exact order in which your party members can take their turn. Note that while initiative also influences the likelihood that a hero will activate their skill, it cannot guarantee that the skill will be used, even if the hero is set at 100 initiative with enough fury to spare. Notice how heroes with the same initiative still follow the default order, and that the order is determined by how high the initiative set is. What not to do: Set everyone's initiative to 100, even if you want everyone's skill to go off. By doing this, you are telling the AI that everyone has the same priority, so they'll just go in the default order and launch a skill whenever they feel like it. What you should do: Prioritize. To get the most out of your heroes, you need fury. To accumulate a good amount of fury, you should rely on 2~3 fury thieves. Set your fury thieves to 100 initiative. This will force them to use their skill whenever possible, and return a good chunk of fury for your next heroes to use. Some players also opt to set one of their fury thief's initiative to a lower number so that they go later in the turn (and return more fury), but remember that this number still needs to be relatively high so that it has a good chance of activating its skill. The next thing I personally prioritize is Dinari because of his ability to greatly increase your damage per turn. By applying the critical buff early in the turn, your heroes can take advantage of the potential extra damage during that turn, and not have to waste a turn off his turn-counter. Set his initiative to 99~100 so that he's the next priority after your fury thieves. (100 works in cases where Dinari is at the far back, which is last in terms of initiative-order. However, if you're training someone and Dinari is in the damage line, 99 is recommended if you have a fury thief in the damage line (eg. Jarkan or Harold) that is stationed below Dinari.) Next up are the healers because you can't deal any damage if your heroes aren't alive. Healers (exception: Berserker) are special in the sense that regardless of their initiative, their skill will go off as long as there is a hero below ~70% of their total HP and there is enough fury. Thus, initiative will only affect when they go off, and setting your healer's initiative is purely preferential. I formerly had my healer's initiative at 98 initiative (there is a higher chance of going off then because your fury thieves (if you have two or more) would have just recovered fury she can use, but I now set it at 50 initiative (or the absolute last one to go off) because I would rather one of my heroes launch a skill if they bothered*. Again, this is completely up to your preference because a healer's skill's activation rate is not reliant on initiative. Finally, we have our damage dealers. You can decide on which damage dealers you prefer to go first (if they go off at all*). If your healer is activated, the hero or two after that will normally basic attack because there won't be enough fury for them to go off; the second or third damage dealer is more likely to go off instead. If the healer does not go off, the AI will prioritize your damage dealers accordingly though their skills are not always guaranteed to activate. I keep my damage dealers at around 85~95 initiative for that nice all-out on the boss, although you can widen the range depending on how flexible you are with having them use their skill or not. In some cases, you'll have a hero with a great non-passive inscription (eg. Thunderous) on their weapon. If you prefer that they don't use their skills to activate the inscription instead, it is best to leave their initiative at 0 so that they can use a normal attack and generate fury for the rest of the team. This is best used with a hero that wields a splash weapon (cannons, guns, and axes). Although the inscription only has a chance of activating, it will affect all intended targets if it does proc. Of course, because initiative affects when the hero goes, heroes set at 0 initiative will almost always go last. Misc. Information regarding Initiative *AIs are a funny thing, and while most of this makes sense on paper, there are many things I can't explain, such as why a hero's skills won't go off despite there being enough fury if their turn is in the middle of everyone else. Below, I have compiled a list of observations that you may find useful in initiative setting, but keep in mind that your observations may vary from mine, so if you find that some other initiative order more effective for you, feel free to use it: Skill Activation * Your first 3~4 heroes, if set at 98~100 initiative will almost always go off without fail (2 single-target fury thieves, Dinari and Lindsay in my observations). The next few end up as fury generators (normal attacks), and the last person will also frequently go off (in my former case, Vera). Because of this, I set my healer to be the last person to go so that she doesn't waste 300 fury on a single leftover monster. Fury Thief Initiatives * In manual battle, it is better to have your fury thieves go last, because enemies accumulate more fury by the end of the turn (thus, there's more to steal); however, if you try this in auto-battle, your heroes will likely leave little to no fury for your fury thieves to actually go off, which defeats the point of having them there in the first place. Because of this, some people prefer setting one fury thief to go towards the end of the turn. I've tried this before (both with two or three fury thieves), but I've observed that fury thieves left for later in the turn don't normally go off/go off infrequently. If you happen to leave a couple stragglers after the first & second waves, your fury thieves will still go first on their next turn, and reap the same benefits as having a fury thief go last. * Harold (and the Sniper-Gun main) is a special fury thief that relies on a 3~4 targets to get the most out fury out of his skill. Depending on how much fury the enemy has, he can prove to be a lot less effective than a single target fury thief, especially if he's killing stragglers on the second turn of the wave you're on. If you set him later in the turn, the enemy formation tends to be a lot more scattered, which will end up hindering him instead. Because of this, it is recommended that you do not set him to be the first fury thief to go off (he can still have an initiative of 100 as long as one of your fury thieves are either in the tank line or above him in the damage line), so that if there's a single enemy left, your single-target fury thief can attack it instead. ** If he's so troublesome, why use him? If you promote him to 4*+ and give him a good weapon, he'll usually wipe a full row off the board. Everyone likes a fury thief with great damage. The Berserker Case * Despite having heal capabilities, the Berserker main is not classified as a healer (AI-wise), which means he will not activate his skill just because one of your heroes is under 70% of his HP. Some people do use him as the only healer in their party, but this can make the run you're doing very sensitive to whether or not he goes off, especially if an enemy wave can bring your front line's HP below 50% in a single turn. Because of this, some people set their Berserker to 100 initiative. I don't recommend it, but if you still want to, remember to at least have one fury thief go before him so that there is at least a little bit of fury to spare for the rest of your team. You may also want to consider a third fury thief. It is also important to make sure he has a good weapon so that his heals are more potent, otherwise, it's best to keep another healer in your team (or maybe even change your healer to the Sorceress-Tome main). The Sorceress Case * The Sorceress-Tome main has two roles, healing and granting an attack buff. As such, she combines both AI types to determine which row she will heal next (let's call this the Healer-Buff AI). As its informal name suggests, her AI prioritizes healing over granting a buff; if there is an ally with very low HP, she will heal that row regardless of whether they are buffed yet. If none of your allies require healing, she will grant an attack buff to the right-most row that does not have a buff (either attack or critical). If all rows have a buff, she will target the right-most row without an attack buff. YOU ARE ON PAGE 4 OF 5. ◄ PREVIOUS | NEXT ►